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Speaker 1: The Minnesota Transport was in Split View on the N

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Speaker 1: three Highway in kaw teng where she officially launched the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty six Easter Road Safety Campaign. It forms part

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Speaker 1: of government's ongoing efforts to promote responsible behavior and to

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Speaker 1: reduce road crashes during the Easter travel period. The Miniesetva

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Speaker 1: Transport Barbara Creasy, joins me now. Minister, a very good afternoon,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the show. Tell us about what was

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Speaker 1: included in the launch of the Easter road Safety campaign

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Speaker 1: earlier today.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon and greetings to all your listeners. Well, we

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Speaker 2: are beginning the intensified road safety operations that will cover

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Speaker 2: the four long weeks that are taking place in March

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Speaker 2: and in April, and obviously we will be doing the

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Speaker 2: usual issues related to drunk driving, but this year we're

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Speaker 2: having a special focus on the road worthiness of vehicles

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Speaker 2: from the NATUS. We have an indication that there are

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Speaker 2: almost three hundred and thirty thousand vehicles operating on our roads,

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Speaker 2: many of which are passenger vehicles that are not road worthy.

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Speaker 2: We are trying to find those vehicles and either give

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Speaker 2: them a note, a compliance notice, or if the condition

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Speaker 2: of them is extremely bad to remove them from the roads.

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Speaker 2: We're also having a special focus this year on the

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Speaker 2: issue of pedestrians because almost half of all those killed

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Speaker 2: on our roads are pedestrians, and this includes special patrols

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Speaker 2: where we know there's a high pedestrian fatality rate, and

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Speaker 2: also ongoing public education to encourage pedestrians to use bridges

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Speaker 2: and obviously to wear brightly colored clothing and so on

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Speaker 2: so that they're visible.

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Speaker 1: At night, because that is going to be the more

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Speaker 1: challenging to police. Right there are thousands of kilometers of

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Speaker 1: road network in South Africa and some of the debts,

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Speaker 1: as I would imagine, the majority of them happening in communities,

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Speaker 1: in neighborhoods where perhaps it might not be best advised

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Speaker 1: to deploy traffic law enforcement.

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Speaker 2: Well, we obviously have considerable data that we've collected through

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Speaker 2: the Road Traffic Management Corporation, and using that data, we

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Speaker 2: are able to identify hotspots where, unfortunately, pedestrians are knocked

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Speaker 2: over on a fairly regular basis, and it is those

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Speaker 2: hotspots that we will be patrolling. Obviously, we in some

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Speaker 2: instances we are using our student traffic officer trainees, and

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Speaker 2: in other instances we are working together with our expanded

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Speaker 2: public works program to use community patrollers to discourage pedestrians

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Speaker 2: from running across roads, but also to make bridges safer,

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Speaker 2: because we have found many instances where we've gone to

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Speaker 2: talk to communities and they've said, well, there is a bridge,

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Speaker 2: but we don't use it because we're frightened of getting

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Speaker 2: mugged on the bridge. So these are the kind of

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Speaker 2: interventions we're trying to put in place so that we

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Speaker 2: reduce this kind of accident that is extremely widespread and

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Speaker 2: very terrible.

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Speaker 1: Are there provinces or even geographical locations within those provinces

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Speaker 1: that you'll be hyper focused on given what your data

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Speaker 1: is telling you.

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Speaker 2: Yes, obviously we will be focusing throughout this period on

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Speaker 2: the main arterial roads that there's going to be school holidays.

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Speaker 2: We also know that the religious festivals result in a

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Speaker 2: lot of traveling by congregants, and obviously we will be

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Speaker 2: patrolling those roads. I think the n one is well

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Speaker 2: known over the Easter period for congregants that would be

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Speaker 2: attending festivals, religious festivals that would be taking place in Paulaqwani.

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Speaker 2: But I can say to you that in terms of

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Speaker 2: pedestrian deaths, we have found that Johannesburg, Ikuorellini, Ettiguini, the

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Speaker 2: city of Cape Town and the city of Umbumbela are

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Speaker 2: where the highest number of pedestrian casualties occur, and those

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Speaker 2: would those cities and those pedestrian hotspots would be particular

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Speaker 2: areas of focus.

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Speaker 1: We are going to be seeing. I suppose a massive

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Speaker 1: petrol price pelita increase the first week of April, and

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Speaker 1: I fully appreciate that this is a purview of the

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Speaker 1: Department of Minerals and Energy, But many people keep on

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Speaker 1: asking what are we doing in ensuring that the public

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Speaker 1: transport system is available, is secure and obviously priced rightly,

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Speaker 1: particularly when it comes to train services, and a listener

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Speaker 1: asking about long distance train services area of what work

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Speaker 1: are you doing in that area?

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Speaker 2: Minister Well, re establishing rail and here we're talking about

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Speaker 2: both passenger and freight trail as the backbone of the

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Speaker 2: transport system is one of the key priorities of this

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Speaker 2: term of government. And you would know that we have

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Speaker 2: managed to rehabilitate thirty seven out of the forty priority

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Speaker 2: proces allignes train journeys are still very affordable. What we

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Speaker 2: are working hard on at the moment is to restore

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Speaker 2: signaling on these lines, because then we will be able

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Speaker 2: to put many more trains on and make the service

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Speaker 2: much more available to commuters. So I have a team

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Speaker 2: of experts that is currently working with PRACER to look

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Speaker 2: at whether we can safely increase the number of trains

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Speaker 2: we're running per hour on existing lines with existing technology.

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Speaker 2: And obviously this is a matter that has to be

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Speaker 2: entered into with the Rail Safety Regulator, but we do

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Speaker 2: believe very strongly that that rail is a much more

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Speaker 2: affordable means of transport over long distance for commuters. But

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Speaker 2: also you would be aware that we put out a

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Speaker 2: call for proposals last year to re establish passenger services

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Speaker 2: between Harting, Durban, Bombela and Messina. So we're waiting to

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Speaker 2: see what information we have got through that request for

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Speaker 2: information and whether it is affordable to re establish those

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Speaker 2: passenger services because there's no doubt that there is a demand.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely Minnester will leave it there. Thank you very much

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Speaker 1: for your time this afternoon. Minnesota Transport Barbara Chrissy talking

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Speaker 1: to us following the launch of the twenty twenty six

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Speaker 1: Easter road safety campaign that happened at the spread view

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Speaker 1: of Ramp on the N three. That's the November three

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Speaker 1: highway in Hauteng earlier today,